Open Discussion

Sandy has suggested that we have a space for open discussion of topics that may be off-topic. That's fine with me. Let's see if the "Discussion" option will serve that purpose. Please give it a shot. Jim

Replies to This Discussion

"In a roundabout way, Aaronovitch suggests that conspiracy theorists exist to provide rationale for a group's failings. Did the New Left in the early 1960s fail to deliver on its promises? Blame the shadowy forces behind the JFK killing. I did appreciate that Aaroniovitch exposed the silliness of the "Cui bono" ("Who benefits") rationale to expose the guilty party behind a nefarious act. Though it is tempting to find winners and losers in the wake of tragedy, it goes far beyond reason to suggest that winners were behind the tragic events. Lyndon Johnson befitted from JFK's death by becoming president. But this does not mean that he was behind his predecessor's death. "

I just excerpted the above a book review of Aaronvitch's book Voodoo History.

I'm going to definitely have to tune into CTC that night, it looks rich. This Aaronvitch , the guest, looks like one of those cover up artists extraordinaire.

In a reversal, the Pentagon says it will reopen hundreds of cases of alleged purchases of child pornography by Department of Defense employees that Pentagon officials previously declined to investigate, The Upshot has learned.

Earlier this month, The Upshot reported exclusively that in 2007, investigators for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service obtained a list of 264 military service members, civilian employees and contractors for the Department of Defense who had used credit cards or PayPal to purchase access to a child pornography website. But the DCIS, citing scarce resources, pursued only 52 of the names before closing the project -- known as Project Flicker -- in 2008. Since no further public information on the cases was made available, it appears that the other people on the list of suspected child-pornography patrons were able to continue their careers without any interruption that stemmed from the investigation.

But today, the Pentagon official in charge of DCIS told The Upshot that he has ordered the remaining cases reopened. "I have tasked Defense Criminal Investigative Service representatives with reviewing each and every Project Flicker and related referral DCIS received so as to ensure action was taken regarding these allegations involving employees of the Department of Defense," Deputy Inspector General for Investigations James Burch said in the statement Wednesday.

Burch announced his decision to revisit the cases, which had been abandoned for two years, in response to inquiries from The Upshot.

Project Flicker began in 2006 as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau investigation targeting overseas processing of payments for online subscriptions to child pornography websites. In the course of the inquiry, ICE agents obtained a list of names and account information for more than 5,000 U.S. residents who had purchased subscriptions to such sites using their credit cards or PayPal accounts. Some of them used .mil e-mail addresses, or physical addresses on or near military installations, so in 2007 ICE handed the list to DCIS agents to identify and investigate any military members.

DCIS came up with 264 active-duty and reserve military members, civilian employees and contractors on the list, including more than 70 with security clearances and 22 with Top Secret clearances. Among them were a contractor for the super-secretive National Security Agency, a staffer in Defense Secretary Robert Gates' office, and a program manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. But DCIS only opened investigations into 52 of the names, according to investigative documents obtained by The Upshot under the Freedom of Information Act, and only 10 were ever charged. According to the documents, the project was closed in 2008 "due to the need to focus more resources on other DCIS investigative priorities." DCIS is primarily concerned with contractor fraud, and generally doesn't pursue child pornography cases.

A source familiar with the investigations confirmed to The Upshot earlier this month that DCIS simply "didn't have the resources to run with it," so the agency picked the most sensitive cases -- individuals with Top Secret clearances, or people who worked at sensitive military installations -- and ignored the rest. According to the documents, there no systematic effort to alert the individual military service branches' criminal investigative commands, or even superiors or commanding officers, to the presence of hundreds of alleged child pornography patrons in the Defense Department. (The Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which investigates criminal matters for the Air Force, says it received no referrals from DCIS, but did launch three investigations based on names received from ICE. The Army's Criminal Investigative Division says it doesn't know how many, if any, names DCIS referred. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service did not respond to inquiries.)

Based on the documents released via FOIA, it is impossible for DCIS to have pursued every purchaser with a security clearance -- 76 of the names had Secret clearances or higher, and only 52 were investigated. Kenneth deGraffenreid, one of the nation's top former counterintelligence officials, told The Upshot last week that the Pentagon's failure to run down at the very least every name with a clearance was "absurd," and that foreign intelligence services are actively seeking people who have both access to America's secrets and terrible secrets of their own that make them vulnerable to blackmail.

In his statement, Burch said that even if criminal charges were not pursued against the remaining names on the list, DCIS would take steps to alert their superiors for administrative action. Here's the full statement:

I have tasked Defense Criminal Investigative Service representatives with reviewing each and every Project Flicker and related referral DCIS received so as to ensure action was taken regarding these allegations involving employees of the Department of Defense. If circumstances dictate, additional appropriate steps will be taken to ensure allegations involving DoD employees are thoroughly explored. In situations whereby criminal charges will not be pursued, relevant information will be referred to the leadership of appropriate DoD organizations for administrative action deemed appropriate.

The Boston Globe first reported the existence of Project Flicker in July; The Upshot was the first to report the existence of hundreds of names the Pentagon had declined to investigate.

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I think they will pay lip service to re-opening the investigation but it will all be window dressing.

When we look at the Military Industrial Complex or even the Republican Party we see a very high incidence of sexual predation against children.

Do a search on "Grand Old Pedophiles" and you will come up with a very long list. Nothing even remotely resembling the extremely short list of Democratic Party leadership involved in child sexual predation.

And again, the military if of the same ilk as the GOP. They vote Conservative and hire Conservative. So what we will find is that only those kiddie porn purveyors who were out of favor with the Pentagon establishment will be investigated. Those people are probably all gone since the original story was disclosed anyway. The rest will either have their cases dropped or moved to some other good paying job within the private contracting sector.

There will be few to no serious convictions. Mark my word here and now.

Those that rise through the ranks of the Military do so because they've got the goods on the bastards at the top. With few exceptions. It's why we have the monster known as the Military Industrial Complex in the first place.

Only those people with no conscience at all can plan and execute 9/11. Or start elective wars of mass murder.

In a reversal, the Pentagon says it will reopen hundreds of cases of alleged purchases of child pornography by Department of Defense employees that Pentagon officials previously declined to investigate, The Upshot has learned.

Earlier this month, The Upshot reported exclusively that in 2007, investigators for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service obtained a list of 264 military service members, civilian employees and contractors for the Department of Defense who had used credit cards or PayPal to purchase access to a child pornography website. But the DCIS, citing scarce resources, pursued only 52 of the names before closing the project -- known as Project Flicker -- in 2008. Since no further public information on the cases was made available, it appears that the other people on the list of suspected child-pornography patrons were able to continue their careers without any interruption that stemmed from the investigation.

But today, the Pentagon official in charge of DCIS told The Upshot that he has ordered the remaining cases reopened. "I have tasked Defense Criminal Investigative Service representatives with reviewing each and every Project Flicker and related referral DCIS received so as to ensure action was taken regarding these allegations involving employees of the Department of Defense," Deputy Inspector General for Investigations James Burch said in the statement Wednesday.

Burch announced his decision to revisit the cases, which had been abandoned for two years, in response to inquiries from The Upshot.

Project Flicker began in 2006 as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau investigation targeting overseas processing of payments for online subscriptions to child pornography websites. In the course of the inquiry, ICE agents obtained a list of names and account information for more than 5,000 U.S. residents who had purchased subscriptions to such sites using their credit cards or PayPal accounts. Some of them used .mil e-mail addresses, or physical addresses on or near military installations, so in 2007 ICE handed the list to DCIS agents to identify and investigate any military members.

DCIS came up with 264 active-duty and reserve military members, civilian employees and contractors on the list, including more than 70 with security clearances and 22 with Top Secret clearances. Among them were a contractor for the super-secretive National Security Agency, a staffer in Defense Secretary Robert Gates' office, and a program manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. But DCIS only opened investigations into 52 of the names, according to investigative documents obtained by The Upshot under the Freedom of Information Act, and only 10 were ever charged. According to the documents, the project was closed in 2008 "due to the need to focus more resources on other DCIS investigative priorities." DCIS is primarily concerned with contractor fraud, and generally doesn't pursue child pornography cases.

A source familiar with the investigations confirmed to The Upshot earlier this month that DCIS simply "didn't have the resources to run with it," so the agency picked the most sensitive cases -- individuals with Top Secret clearances, or people who worked at sensitive military installations -- and ignored the rest. According to the documents, there no systematic effort to alert the individual military service branches' criminal investigative commands, or even superiors or commanding officers, to the presence of hundreds of alleged child pornography patrons in the Defense Department. (The Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which investigates criminal matters for the Air Force, says it received no referrals from DCIS, but did launch three investigations based on names received from ICE. The Army's Criminal Investigative Division says it doesn't know how many, if any, names DCIS referred. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service did not respond to inquiries.)

Based on the documents released via FOIA, it is impossible for DCIS to have pursued every purchaser with a security clearance -- 76 of the names had Secret clearances or higher, and only 52 were investigated. Kenneth deGraffenreid, one of the nation's top former counterintelligence officials, told The Upshot last week that the Pentagon's failure to run down at the very least every name with a clearance was "absurd," and that foreign intelligence services are actively seeking people who have both access to America's secrets and terrible secrets of their own that make them vulnerable to blackmail.

In his statement, Burch said that even if criminal charges were not pursued against the remaining names on the list, DCIS would take steps to alert their superiors for administrative action. Here's the full statement:

I have tasked Defense Criminal Investigative Service representatives with reviewing each and every Project Flicker and related referral DCIS received so as to ensure action was taken regarding these allegations involving employees of the Department of Defense. If circumstances dictate, additional appropriate steps will be taken to ensure allegations involving DoD employees are thoroughly explored. In situations whereby criminal charges will not be pursued, relevant information will be referred to the leadership of appropriate DoD organizations for administrative action deemed appropriate.

The Boston Globe first reported the existence of Project Flicker in July; The Upshot was the first to report the existence of hundreds of names the Pentagon had declined to investigate.

Other popular stories on Yahoo!:
• What not to say when pulled over by a cop
• Female reporter talks

"When we look at the Military Industrial Complex or even the Republican Party we see a very high incidence of sexual predation against children."

I wish this wasn't true, but from what I heard about 5 years ago, you might very well be correct. I don't see a lot written about this taboo subject, but it absolute creeps me out . What a world we inhabit where the most vile, evil rule the world, worse than any Ian Fleming drama about Blofeld lasering the world or anything, the truth is far creepier.

Thoth II: This is not about Jesse's book but about a forthcoming episode of "Conspiracy Theory" on TruTV in which he dismantles the official account of the assassination of JFK. I was featured in the program and had a role in its production. Since I have done so much on JFK, perhaps they might want to feature a rebuttal. Jim

that is a summary of David Aaronovitch's dreary 3 hour performance on coast to coast this sunday. I think he was set up to try to counteract the popularity of Jesse Ventura's latest CT book. This guy spouted off the whole laundry list of logical fallacies they've thrown at CTers that are familiar to most of those reading this forum. Again, their tactic seems to be the usual kicking up dust to neutralize all the good research that has been done on JFK, 911, etc., and again, lump all CTers into one tin-foil hatted umbrella, when of course each subject must be research in great detail by experts in the appropriate fields. He unbelievably even implied that the magic bullet theory was valid, and that really is all the further you have to go with this guy. Us JFKers have heard it all before for 50 years. But why in the heck is CTC promoting the book like Voodoo History? Fortunately, I don't think this will neutralize Jesse's book, no one knows this guy while everyone knows Jesse.

"When we look at the Military Industrial Complex or even the Republican Party we see a very high incidence of sexual predation against children." I wish this wasn't true, but from what I heard about 5 years ago, you might very well be correct. I don't see a lot written about this taboo subject, but it absolute creeps me out . What a world we inhabit where the most vile, evil rule the world, worse than any Ian Fleming drama about Blofeld lasering the world or anything, the truth is far creepier.

Have posted this before elsewhere. Is worth a look if you can hold your nose at the same time. A search of any on this list should produce a link showing a CONVICTION of child molestation or kiddie porn type laws. I truly believe that with this list we can hypothesize that the reason the GOP walks in lockstep is due to powerful monied interests holding the goods on them.

Or pardon me for going there: Offering the "goods". Carrot and the stick. Sick behavior rewarded and also used as blackmail.

We're just not seeing numbers anywhere near this from the Democratic Party. Perhaps one or two like Democrat Neil Goldschmidt former mayor of Portland. But even there his behavior, while wrong did not result in a conviction. Also the young person he had an affair with was fairly close to the age of consent.

With these GOP FREAKS? They're (sorry to put it this way) raping their own six year old sons and daughters. Seemingly in a regular tendency.

The following isn't my own list. That one is on a computer that needs work. Incidentally, when i first started compiling my own list three GOP party leaders committed suicide after being convicted on child molestation charges. Made me re-write the list... All during the time I was putting the list together!!! One drove his car at 100mph into an Illinois concrete abutment, another gassed himself in his garage and the other hung himself in jail...

Again: Run a Google search on any of these. Most all should report back a CONVICTION on child sexual abuse. Except for Mark Foley who merely got lucky he wasn't caught. Read 'em and weep. For the children that is...

thanks, Lee and Thoth II for your comments on the perverts. yeah, absolutely
creeps me out, too.
yeah, that was my first thought, that yeah, like the pantagone is gonna
prosecute their own criminals.. kind of a mixed bag of feelings here. first,
what a bunch of sick pigs. Lee and whomever else have kept track of all these
sickos, thanks. wow, that's quite a long and disgusting list of perverts.
somewhat surprising, the way things are, that any of them get convicted, eh?

really gross how they dismissed most of the child porn fans, like it wasn't anything
THAT bad, or they didn't have the resources, yeah, right, cause they're busy
spending all the moo on war and weapons..

but then why bring it back up and do more thorough investigations?
and yeah, isn't it weird and gross, how do warmaking and child porn go
together? just all around sickos with the need to kill and abuse kids?
reminds me of how weird i always think it is that some so called religious people
are also war mongerers, and vice versa. things that don't seem to make sense.

i thought this sentence was particularly interesting:
Kenneth deGraffenreid, one of the nation's top former counterintelligence officials, told The Upshot last week that the Pentagon's failure to run down at the very least every name with a clearance was "absurd," and that foreign intelligence services are actively seeking people who have both access to America's secrets and terrible secrets of their own that make them vulnerable to blackmail.

of course being a 9/11 truther i wondered if any of 'america's secrets' might involve 9/11.

"Thoth II: This is not about Jesse's book but about a forthcoming episode of "Conspiracy Theory" on TruTV in which he dismantles the official account of the assassination of JFK. I was featured in the program and had a role in its production. Since I have done so much on JFK, perhaps they might want to feature a rebuttal. Jim"

Excellent, I look forward to watching that episode of Conspiracy Theory. Ttrutv evidently filmed those for fall release so I would expect it out soon. Good thing about cable TV these days is that they have multiple airings and even after a few months hiatus come back out with rebroadcasts usually.

' This years new Project Censored 2011 Book has been released including numerous stories and references to the 9/11 cover up. Dr. Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff explain in this interview that they have been censored by so called "alternative" left wing publications because of their refusal to drop 9/11 truth content!

From the show notes: "Censored 2011" with Dr. Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff. We discuss the new Project Censored book and some of the most censored news stories of the past year. --END--''

regarding the list of people who were said to have purchased the child porn,
how's this for a weird idea?.....or maybe not so weird considering.....

Lee, as soon as you mentioned the 3 people who 'committed suicide'
i instantly wondered if they might have had 'help' with the 'suicides', and i
don't mean Dr. Kavorkian style.. it certainly wouldn't be the first time that
deaths were made to look like suicides but were altogether something else.

add to that the part about foreign intelligence services looking for people
who both knew 'america's secrets' and had grossout things to hide of their own..

because doesn't it seem a bit weird that they would reopen these
investigations rather than just sweep it all under the rug and hope nobody
notices? unless they managed to actually get a good guy or two in there
who would actually prosecute such people, and that doesn't seem that likely,
the whole story doesn't sit right and seems there must be more to it, ya know?

maybe the investigations even have a sinister side to them, rather than
just the good guys (if there are any in there) going after the sicko guys.
maybe they're trying to bag the guys who know 'america's secrets' before
the foreign intelligence folks can try to blackmail the secrets out of them.

imagine it even a step further, and maybe it could be a way of bagging
some who know the 'secrets', whether they actually did the porn purchases
or not. would be easy enough for them to set up people they wanted to
shut up, right, rather than risk anyone else 'blackmailing' the 'secrets' out of em.
of course i don't doubt that there are plenty of actual sickos in the pot, too.

maybe it's just my over?active imagination, but the whole story seems
off somehow to me, and it also seems surprising that so many repubikins
would be busted by their own. just a thought. Lee, do you have the names
of the 3 who 'committed suicide'?

Well in each of the three cases the suicides occurred on the heels of a conviction. I'd have to research the people and start all over without my old computer online. As I recollect one was some kind of Illinois County commissioner who did his daughters. While out on bail he drove his car at 100 mph into concrete. Then the guy who gassed himself had also received a verdict. Or perhaps his daughters had agreed to testify against him. He was from some southern east coast state like georgia. One of those typical GOP "Family values" hypocrites. And the last was already in jail from an FBI internet sting.

Of the three the good ol boy from the South might seem the easiest one to have been an intentional hit. The other two seem less likely.

Sandy: I have no doubt that the only reason they re-opened the investigation was for self serving reasons. As for blackmail from foreign countries? My guess is that ALL intelligence services work together. Every promotion in the intelligence service more a product of collusion with helpful parties among their "enemies" than for anything productive within their own agency.

I generally remain skeptical of some of those "Satanic Cult" internet theories of child abduction and so on but maybe it's just because I'm naive. What would stop these bastards? In order to pull off 9/11 they simply had to have zero moral scruples. So the obvious candidates for that kind of conspiracy would be a collective group of child predators.

The shoe seems to fit. Where smoke there is fire. Disappearing kids and high incidence of kiddie crime convictions being the smoke.

sandy rose said:

regarding the list of people who were said to have purchased the child porn, how's this for a weird idea?.....or maybe not so weird considering.....

Lee, as soon as you mentioned the 3 people who 'committed suicide'
i instantly wondered if they might have had 'help' with the 'suicides', and i
don't mean Dr. Kavorkian style.. it certainly wouldn't be the first time that
deaths were made to look like suicides but were altogether something else.

add to that the part about foreign intelligence services looking for people
who both knew 'america's secrets' and had grossout things to hide of their own..

because doesn't it seem a bit weird that they would reopen these
investigations rather than just sweep it all under the rug and hope nobody
notices? unless they managed to actually get a good guy or two in there
who would actually prosecute such people, and that doesn't seem that likely,
the whole story doesn't sit right and seems there must be more to it, ya know?

maybe the investigations even have a sinister side to them, rather than
just the good guys (if there are any in there) going after the sicko guys.
maybe they're trying to bag the guys who know 'america's secrets' before
the foreign intelligence folks can try to blackmail the secrets out of them.

imagine it even a step further, and maybe it could be a way of bagging
some who know the 'secrets', whether they actually did the porn purchases
or not. would be easy enough for them to set up people they wanted to
shut up, right, rather than risk anyone else 'blackmailing' the 'secrets' out of em.
of course i don't doubt that there are plenty of actual sickos in the pot, too.

maybe it's just my over?active imagination, but the whole story seems
off somehow to me, and it also seems surprising that so many repubikins
would be busted by their own. just a thought. Lee, do you have the names
of the 3 who 'committed suicide'?